If a con artist were selling Florida swampland to vulnerable senior citizens, would the media give a sympathetic portrayal of the swindler? If a doctor were selling bogus cancer cures to desperate patients, would a television show try to help the quack by offering an image makeover?

Of course not.

Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of the “ex-gay” issue, reporters routinely minimize the experiences of the “ex-gay” industry’s victims and provide kindhearted depictions of the cruel and fraudulent victimizers.

The most recent example of such incompetent reporting came from the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Lisa Ling, who produced a segment called “Pray the Gay Away?” for Our America With Lisa Ling. In her zest to appear “balanced,” Ling forfeited the higher journalistic value of accuracy. By doing so, the reporter inadvertently made an infomercial for the “ex-gay” group Exodus International, essentially slapping this group’s many victims in their faces.

Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, was so happy with the puff piece that he euphorically gushed about Ling on his group’s blog.

“I would like to extend my thanks to Lisa Ling for the courtesy, sensitivity and respect she demonstrated during our interviews and the filming at our 35th annual conference,” wrote Chambers.

Several weeks prior to the airing of this show, I personally offered to fact-check Ling’s segment. She declined by saying that there was nothing to worry about because she had gay friends.

The truth is, Ling had an agenda ­ and not one that was necessarily antigay. What the reporter wanted to do was humanize a group of activists dedicated to dehumanizing LGBT people in an effort to soothe the sensitivities of religious viewers. To accomplish this, Ling had to whitewash the facts and sweep the devastation caused by Exodus under the rug. Better to produce a tearjerker for Oprah than shine a spotlight on the antigay jerks causing tears for their victims.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

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2 Comments

NickMarch 17, 2011 at 11:13 pm -

Actually, Wayne the answer to both of your rhetorical questions at the beginning of this piece is a resounding “Yes.” Now, the media have not been sympathetic towards anyone as blatantly obvious as a swampland swindler and snake oil cancer cure, however, they have been more than sympathetic to others in similar situations. For instance, after the housing bubble burst, the media have successfully brainwashed the American public into believing that it was the conniving, deceitful lower income and mostly minority borrowers that were at fault for the housing crisis and not the poor, innocent megabanks that practiced predatory mortgage lending. Also, for years the media allowed one English doctor and Jenny McCarthy to continually link infant inoculations with autism without investigating these claims. Because this doctor had published in respectable medical journals and Ms. McCarthy was a celebrity with an autistic son, the media made their views over into a valid alternative argument. That is until the doctor finally admitted that he outright lied about this connection just so he could make money. Given these instances, it is not surprising whatsoever that the media would continue to give some level of respectability to “pray away the gay” groups. This problem of duality in our media is sadly systemic and not limited to Ms. Ling’s piece. Hers is merely the symptom to the disease.

Jessica NaomiMarch 18, 2011 at 1:28 pm -

Lisa Ling “featured” Exodus because as she explained to the Edge http://www.edgelosangeles.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=television&sc3=&id=116724 she believed that it is their prerogative to say that being gay is a choice that can be prayed away, and that anyone who criticized that belief is a bigot. She also said that Exodus was not recruiting, and when I tweeted her the dozens of examples of recruiting, she blocked me. She told me, “Ur employing the same level of judgement as those who criticize u” – calling gay bashing criticism. She knew exactly what she was doing in the antigay violence inciting promo of Chambers saying, “I am not saying homosexuality is wrong God did.”

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